Face masks have found use in surgical as well as industrial and hobby applications in protecting the upper respiratory system of the wearer. The wearing of a face mask may present some discomfort to the wearer, making it difficult for him to speak or breathe easily.
U.K. Pat. No. 5,104 shows a face mask designed as a dust excluding respirator. The "respirator" includes a vertical braid or cord to hold the middle portion of the respirator away from the nostrils and mouth, thus affording ample breathing space and allowing the wearer to speak with ease.
Surgical face masks originally made from woven gauze or linen having low air resistance have since been shown to have poor biological filtration efficiency (B.F.E.).
More recent surgical face masks use a mat of microdenier fibers of fiberglass or other polymeric materials sandwiched between two layers of nonwoven facing materials. This laminate has been shown to have excellent biological filtration efficiency. In these face masks, air resistance of the media may be generally correlated with the biological filtration efficiency. With greater air resistance, the face mask has a tendency to collapse about the nose and mouth. This collapse is not only irritating to the wearer, but causes excessive flexing of the mask media which potentially could cause failure of the mask. Other recently developed face masks utilize a filtration medium wherein the fibers exhibit a high affinity to microorganisms, having a high biological filtration efficiency and low air resistance, but such media are so thin or low in density that the unreinforced masks also show a tendency to collapse about the mouth and nose of the wearer.
Prior art attempts in eliminating this collapsing phenomenon describe the use of supporting framework. U.S. Pat. No. 3,985,132 describes the use of resilient stiffening wire members which bow outward and support the mask away from the nose and mouth of the wearer. 3M markets a mask which incorporates flexible wire supports which may be shaped to hold the mask out from the face. Both attempts incorporate additional material within the mask to create the supporting framework, adding to the expense of these masks, which, because they are disposable must remain low cost items.